Why the teen grid L$ panic?

So, pardon me if I don't really understand this one. Since it was announced that the teen grid was going to use $L as their currency and that GOM/IGE buying/selling would indeed be somehow enabled, a bunch of people...I don't know how large of a bunch, but a bunch, including certian prominant businessmen/women...have been saying that this is going to wreck some kind of havoc on the economy. But (allowing for times when I might have missed something or have been otherwise dense), I haven't seen any of these posts do a particuarly good job of explaining why and how they think this will happen. I can see that there's the potential for mismanagement in terms of how intra-grid commerce might be handled but I don't know what might happen to warrent the high volume of "the sky is falling" statements.

Anyone care to explain this? Also, anyone have ways that the problems might be avoided? (I know the options of "don't let there be intragrid commerce/don't let them sell $L/don't give them the same currency/etc. are there but for the sake of arguement I'll consider them cop-outs; assume that LL is going to somehow enable all those things whether players on the main grid like it or not.)

im ASSUMING here the reason for the panic...is because demand will be so high, the cost for linden dollars will skyrocket....that is just my guess...since in the beginning there will be no supply on the teen grid it will all be demand

I don't see that as a bad thing.

Depends... those who sell L$ certainly won't complain if the prices are driven high again, yes?

But I guess that everytime some "major" chan ge is supposed to "wreak havoc", there'll be people who'll start a panic with posts, rumors and whatnot. We haven't learnt anything since 1929, have we

It's a cul-de-sac where there are Lindens generated through grants and transactions that supposedly don't leave the grid because supposedly these are all teens who are not 18 or 21, depending on the state, who supposedly can't have credit cards on their own and therefore get Paypal accounts such as to be able to cash out Linden dollars on the GOM. I imagine GOM doesn't look too closely but in theory probably can't really allow under 18 to make purchases on the Internet.

But I imagine through friends, parents, fake teen accounts, etc. these generated teen Lindens will find their way into the adult Lindens economy.

I think the problem with l$ on the teen grid is that it creates incentive for adults to log on and try to abuse the economy for their own purposes.

This results in economically abused teenagers and adults on the teen grid. Both kinda silly.

It also gets kids probably worked up over something that maybe they should wait until they are adults to start worrying about.

One big problem is that if you don't have a child in your home (or a minor friend), then you will miss out on capitalizing the other half of the SL economy. Your only choice would be to lie, and sneak into the Teen grid as an adult, risking your ability to exist in SL since you would be perma-banned if LL found out about it.

Basically, those SLers with children will be able to capitalize on the Teen Economy. The rest of us will either have to miss out on that segment of the economy, or be forced to become criminals in the minds of LL.

Ok, so so far it's about unscrupulous adults abusing the system. But if LL aranges for a legit way to trade between the two grids (like the floating vendor island idea), won't that lessen the disire for people to cheat the system (whether its by sneeking in or having their teen work for them)?

Although im not really sure about the panic your refering to I just read the town hall about this so have a few comments - It's not just about adults abusing the system, but teens will too, and abuse each other. Should be quite an interesting place with such a hardline LL "no adult" policy. Any adult that just wants to interact will be banned immidiately - but those that lie and cheat will easily get in and influence the grid. We all know just how carefully they patrol the PG land on the main grid - just wait till they've added a secondary system to service and update and are splitting their attention between two distinct subgroups. It even sounds like the whole land system will be changed there which means that their entire economy will be totally different than this one, yet they will apparently still use the same currency and have complete access to the trading markets. Has anyone actually thought about this a little bit beyond the initial profit/press release phase? Do you really want 13 yr olds buying and selling goods (and services...) over the internet on LL private servers anyways?

I don't think there is any reason that it would increase demand for L$ or L$/$ price significantly because from what i've read about it the L$ pool will be monitored and based on population growth just like ours. That means as new kids join up new money is added to the system, keeping a supposively level money supply. Unless there was a huge disparity between the amount kids chose to buy/sell stuff on their grid compared to the adult grid (ie if LL allowed every adult-created PG vendor into the kid world to rape them of their money) both would probably buy and sell L$ at about the same rates. Sadly though, the reason the L$ has already lost a third of its value in the last few months is because so many people have already lost faith in Linden Labs and the world that they already have - and in my opinion questionable business practices like these are sure to do nothing but more of the same regardless of how many "kids" they recruit.

Just my 2L$

I think there is no reason for big panic.

However, if you add one population of poor people with much time, then you drag down L$ value. And this is what teenagers usually are. They have lower income than adults but more time to spend. So incentive for earning money and working cheap is higher than incentive to spend RL money to buy L$ on GOM. For this reason I expect most teen L$ directly flood currency market. Teens sell, adults buy. Depending on population of teen grid this effect may be neglictable or desastrous. If teen grid would have same population and same L$ stipends as main grid, then I think L$ value of 2 US$ to 2.50 US$ per block might be reasonable. If teen grid is one flop and remains small, maybe one tenth of main grid, then maybe L$ value only go down 5 or 10 percent.

But maybe Linden Lab wake up and do what they *should* do in this case: start teen grid with smaller L$ stipends.

They should also clearly monitor money transfer from teen grid to main grid. If suddenly every second teen L$ find its way to main grid, then money supply on both grids should be reduced until total L$ in circulation on main grid is same as it would be without teen $.

I somehow doubt we'll have many 13 year old gamers on the Teen Grid. I'm guessing 15-17. This just comes from observations of other online communities. I could be completely wrong.

Now, I'm no parent but I think I'd be all for my kids playing in such an enviroment. Hell, if I was a parent I might be banned right now for allowing my kid on the adult grid... Though I'd hope a child of mine would be good at keeping his mouth shut!

I think it's kinda naive for people to worry about their kids getting into naughty things on the internet.

They already have.

I don't blame Linden Lab for their position though. It's the safest legally... and those teens who are on the grid and undetected must be mature enough as is. I think the Teen Grid is a great compromise -- but I don't think we need to worry about the kids much. They look at horrible smut on the internet and turn out fine. At least I did. Let em have their Adult Grid access for business sake (selling items to adults and adults seeling approved items to minors). I think you'll all be surprised at the amount of savvy 16 and 17 year old business men that turn up.

i dont think its a good idea to use L$ in the teen grid, unless there is some sort of interactivity between the two.
how is preventing adults from entering the teen grid going to work? i dont see that as working too well. just as i know there are kids on the adult grid.
this whole teen grid thing seems a bit off. how many 16 year olds can program, or care to for that matter? how many teens can really contribute to this game? probably not many...

and teens wouldnt try to sneak adult content on? where is the line between adult and child content? a teen grid would have to be regulated much much more heavily.

how about parents? in my eyes, a parent would either be super paranoid and never let their kids on a teen grid, or ultra libaral, and let them on the adult one anyway. i cant see this as bringing a very large audience, esp. in comparison with the adult grid.

i cant see using L$ on the teen grid as being a good idea. and this whole teen grid idea seems like a lot more work than its worth... id say LL oughta just work on the adult grid for now. just my humble opinion, flame as you wish.

They should just create a completely new game instead of a "Teen Grid". Whats the difference between a "Teen Grid" and just setting up a couple of restrictive Sims for Teens Only? Nothing would change... Anybody who subscribed with a real birthday under age 18 would be auto-placed into the Teen area. everybody over 18 would end up in the Adult area.. Simple as 1, 2, 3 if you ask me.

I think the creation of the teen grid is a bad mistake. The only possible motivation must be economic. Maybe the new investors just cant get their heads round "wasting" this traditional "game" market fest. Perhaps they've just insisted ?

My opinion is that it will hugely increase the number of underage participants in the adult game. At present 2ndlife simply doesn't feature in the consciousness of the teens and youngsters I know. They dont want to join because they dont know about it.

Can you imagine anything more likely to increase their desire to sneak into the main game than seeing the potential in a half-empty, just-functioning-teen version. And hearing that just around the corner - a credit-card number away - is the real thing - vibrant with economic activity, humming with events, offering the forbidden-fruit of "adult content".

Will the parent who allows the use of his/her credit card for a teen subscription really be savvy enough to spot an identity swap ? After a few months will they still stay alert ?
Looking over their teens shoulder at the screen - will they spot the difference? Will every single one have time and energy to care ?

Our main protection from intruding kids, up to now, was their ignorance of our existence. Will we soon see advertising campaigns in kids magazines, on the web, or even on TV ? Posters in games shops ? Special offers and prizes?

My guess is that 25% of kids recruited to the teen grid will go to huge lengths to sneak into the adult grid once they realise what it is all about.

I hope I am wrong. One great thing about 2ndLife is knowing we're all grown up. I'd hate to have to start worrying we might not be !